I'm going to take a minute to talk about the wonderful website known as Last.fm. If you love music, you need an account. The most obvious feature is its music history tracking. You download a plug-in for your media player of choice, and it records, or "scrobbles," your plays to your profile on the site. It updates each time you listen to a song, and tracks all sorts of interesting statistics about your listening history. So if you're wearing a tinfoil hat, it's not for you. But if you're like me (or most people on the site), you'll delight in seeing the plays rack up for your favorite bands. And it's an incredibly easy way to show someone else what kind of music you listen to.
Though scrobbling is all lots of people use Last.fm for, it has so much more to offer. For one thing, every artist has a page, with a modest biography, photos, most-played tracks, most popular albums, and a "shoutbox," Last.fm's equivalent of a Facebook wall or a comments section. You'll find a shoutbox on every page, whether it be a user, a song, or an artist. While the shoutboxes can often deteriorate into petty squabbling, it's never been easier to see what other people think of your favorite songs.
Did I mention that Last.fm has thousands of tracks you can fully stream for free? While this may not last forever, and there is a limit on how many times you can play each song, it's still a great feature. Say goodbye to shitty 30 second previews (well, for the most part).
Another one of the site's best features is their radio service. It's like Pandora, only basing its recommendations through networking instead of analyzing what an artist is like. You can customize the radio in a wide variety of ways, you can start with a single artist, a la Pandora, or listen to "Your Library" radio, which plays like a greatest hits shuffle of your favorite artists.
It even has events, meaning concerts and shows of course, and a journal page where you can write reviews or complete those annoying chain surveys nobody likes but everyone fills out. And you can see how high your musical compatibility is with other uses. And the site finds tracks that are legally free to download from artists you like or are recommended. The list of features goes on and on.
So if you listen to music even semi-seriously, you owe it to yourself to make a Last.fm. And to friend me when you do!
http://www.last.fm/user/lintman
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Did you get paid for that advert or what
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